Friday, October 16, 2009

One of the more interesting options for Halloween entertainment this year is the two-day tribute band showcase coming up at The Abbey Pub on Chicago’s northwest side. Several local acts will be performing as famous bands on Friday, October 30th and Saturday, October 31st.

Some of the local acts will be familiar to anyone who has been at The Abbey for International Pop Overthrow. Singer-guitarist Phil Angotti, who formed the power pop band The Idea several years ago and has worked on solo projects, will be performing as Squeeze on the 30th. As a member of The Beatle Brothers, Angotti is an old hand at these tribute things, and he’s also performed shows as The Zombies and other British Invasion bands. Also on 30th, the melodic punk band Penthouse Sweets will be covering the Sex Pistols. The Penthouse Sweets’ two song CD, with “We Were High” and “Dark Eyes,” suggests they should be up to the task.

Tomorrow The Moon, a new side project from The Bad Examples guitarist-vocalist Steve Gerlach, will offer their take on The Psychedelic Furs on the 31st. The energetic songs on Tomorrow The Moon’s debut, He Saw Red mix guitars and synthesizers, so this looks to be an entertaining set. Tiny Speakers, a new trio fronted by former The Its! vocalist-guitarist Eric Quinlan, will perform as The Everly Brothers on the 31st. It should help that all three members of Tiny Speakers sing. The Webstirs, who have several strong power pop albums to their credit, will be doing Fleetwood Mac on Saturday, along with roots rock band The Delafields, who will be playing The B-52’s. The Delafields cite R.E.M. and Johnny Cash as major influences, and the well-crafted songs on their MySpace page support that claim. Maybe The Delafields would rather have covered R.E.M., but Chris Dorf and Friends will be doing that on the 30th.

I must confess to not being able to find any info on Mr. Dorf, or Pleezer, who will be performing on the 30th as Weezer. Ditto for Benge & Short, who will be covering Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe on the 30th: Androgynous Mustache, who’ll tackle The J. Geils Band on the 31st; and The Shaking Hand, who’ll be rocking out as AC/DC on Halloween. The only thing I know about Broken China, who will be performing as The Bangles on Friday, is that the name might be a reference to a solo album by Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright. It’s possible some of these acts have come together just for these tribute shows. If anyone has info on them, I'd be glad to post it. Even with the various unknowns, the tribute band weekend at The Abbey looks like a great time. And besides, what’s Halloween without a little mystery? See the Abbey Pub online for information.

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About This Blog

Broken Hearted Toy is an eclectic celebration of creativity, with over 1,700 posts since 2009.

It's based in Chicago and covers power pop, garage, cutting-edge, and 1960s rock; along with occasional bits on art; literature; and theatre.

Top of the hill is a nice place to be at. - - - "Elevated Observations" by The Hollies.

Check out some of my other creative endeavors.

Sunday Morning Coffee With Jeff is a weekly Internet show created by and starring Jeff Kelley. It mostly consists of comedy bits and obscure 1960s garage rock set to vintage TV and film clips but also spotlights entertainment events around Illinois.

Over the past few years, my wife Pam and I created a handful of series (each episode was about two minutes long) that were shown on Sunday Morning Coffee With Jeff. They included Manchester Gallery (see description below); Old Days, which I hosted in the persona of a cranky old man named Fritz Willoughby; Roving Reporter, where I played the clueless title character; What's With Terry?, a performance arts program; and Hanging With The Hollies, a takeoff on Breakfast With The Beatles.

I've also worked with Kelley and contributors Willy Deal and David Metzger on comedy clips. Jeff just kicked off a new season of Sunday Morning Coffee With Jeff, with some cool graphics to go with his new regular features. Willy Deal is onboard, and I'm hoping to join them for some creative endeavors in the near future.

I'm particularly proud of this 21-episode comedy series Pam and I created for Sunday Morning Coffee With Jeff. Each installment was a few minutes long, and featured me portraying Terrence, the curator of a pop culture museum.

My original concept was to make up funny descriptions for some of the rock memorabilia I've collected, but it soon morphed into a sit-com format where my character's inept and devious ways constantly got him into trouble. The two running themes that fueled the action concerned a purloined Beatles button, and the scrambled eggs Paul McCartney was eating when he got the inspiration to compose "Yesterday."

I'm currently exploring options for pitching my Manchester Gallery web-based series to a media company that could help it reach a much larger audience.

This Chicago-based magazine has been covering rock music for close to 40 years, and has a readership of 165,000. I started contributing in 1987 and have written several feature stories and far too many album reviews to count. The Illinois Entertainer can also be found in an online edition.

After starting Broken Hearted Toy a few years back, I asked I.E.'s editor and publisher if I could post material that I had previously written for their publication, and they graciously granted me permission to do so.

Chicago Art Machine was a web-based publishing company run by Editor-in-Chief, Kathryn Born, and Managing Editor, Robin Dluzen, that included Chicago Art Magazine, Chicago DIY Film,Chicago Performance And Trailers, and TINC. Most of my submissions appeared in Chicago DIY Film and Chicago Performance And Trailers, although I contributed to all the online Chicago Art Machine publications.

Unfortunately, Chicago Art Machine has folded. I greatly enjoyed working with Kathryn and Robin, and I'm glad to see they've gone on to other projects in the arts and journalism. I hope to work with them again at some point in the future.

I was a writer and performer with this local comedy group from 1989 to 2009. Amusical parody I wrote about Arthur Andersen's Enron crisis was covered by the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, and other publications.

Famous In The Future continues to perform in the Chicago area, and has appeared at every one of the Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins theatre festivals that are held each August at the Mary-Arrchie Theatre. Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins will celebrate its 25th Anniversary in August, 2013.

Famous In The Future has a musical side project called The Rut, which occasionally plays at concert events organized by whitewolfsonicprincess, a band that's an offshoot of Black Forest Theatre.

I'm an active member of SCBWI, (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) and have written two Middle Grade fantasy novels that I'm shopping to literary agents. I've finished a mystery/satiric novel that takes place amidst Chicago's alternative music scene in the mid-1980s.

Broken Hearted Toy

The blog title comes from the line, "I'm the brokenhearted toy you play with" in the song "I Can't Let Go" by The Hollies. One of the great original British Invasion bands, The Hollies continue to have an immense influence on power pop bands to this day, and have finally been inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here is a video of "I Can't Let Go" being performed in 1966.